Wednesday, November 7, 2012

TRAIL MIX Science: 2, GOP: 0

POST-ELECTION ANALYSIS, from The Inlander's political column, Trail Mix:

In the last two weeks of the election, the Republican Party’s complicated relationship with facts came into sharp relief. Just before Halloween, their party line that global warming is a hoax became a not-so-funny punchline when the Weather Channel showed a storm over the East Coast — like, over the entire East Coast. It was an unprecedented storm, nearly 1,000 miles across. Some hoax.

Then, in the week leading up to the election you had any number of rightward-leaning pundits dismissing scientific polls in favor of things like “the vibrations feel right” (Peggy Noonan) and predicting a Mitt Romney landslide (George Will, Karl Rove). Forget science — they just felt it in their gut.

Well, science wins again, as super-geek Nate Silver’s poll of polls pretty much nailed the outcome, right down to Florida being too close to call (although he did call it for the president).